Belt conveyer apparatus consist of a continuous flat belt trained about one or more rollers that transports materials or packages from one place to another. In the food and produce processing and packaging industries, conveyers are used to move all manner of produce between various processing and packaging stations. The continuous flat belts (conveyer belts) of a conventional belt conveyer apparatus have taken the form of a continuous durable cloth, rubber or polymer fabric or mat or a series of interlinked cross planks.
To accommodate moving greater volumes of produce and to move produce at inclines, conveyer belts often have an array of protrusions extending from the outer surface. Conventional conveyer belts used for moving produce have crescent shaped protrusions as shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings; however, the hard, sharp edges of conventional conveyer belt designs, frequently damage soft ripe produce, such as blueberries. In addition, conventional conveyer belt designs are unable to effectively move produce at inclines greater than twenty degrees without produce rolling back down the conveyer, referred to commonly as “roll-back.”